60 episodes

Every Friday, Master Herbalist and veteran Christian unschooler, Julie Polanco, shares hope, how-to’s, and a bit of humor from her unschooling family’s adventures as city homesteaders pursuing God’s best naturally.



Become more self-reliant as you listen to Julie share lessons from her years of growing and preserving all things green.



Learn historic uses and preparations of roots, seeds, stems, bark, leaves, and flowers from across God’s Creation.



Laugh with Julie as she remembers mistakes and mishaps her family experienced over the past two decades seeking the natural, crunchy Christian life.

Crunchy Christian Podcast Julie Polanco

    • Health & Fitness
    • 5.0 • 2 Ratings

Every Friday, Master Herbalist and veteran Christian unschooler, Julie Polanco, shares hope, how-to’s, and a bit of humor from her unschooling family’s adventures as city homesteaders pursuing God’s best naturally.



Become more self-reliant as you listen to Julie share lessons from her years of growing and preserving all things green.



Learn historic uses and preparations of roots, seeds, stems, bark, leaves, and flowers from across God’s Creation.



Laugh with Julie as she remembers mistakes and mishaps her family experienced over the past two decades seeking the natural, crunchy Christian life.

    How to Relieve Stress Naturally With These Easy Helps

    How to Relieve Stress Naturally With These Easy Helps

    Episode 60- We've been talking about emotional eating and how bad it is for your health. Last week, I discussed how to take simple steps to stop emotional eating. But, what can you do to handle the stress instead of satisfying that urge to eat? In this episode, I talk about how to relieve stress naturally with some easy helps. These include natural remedies as well as some other things you can do in the moment without any prep work. Let's get started!

    How to Relieve Stress Naturally

    Some of the best ways for how to relieve stress naturally don't require any special tools or foods. Sometimes, it's a matter of attitude, self-talk, breath exercises, and other quick and easy things you can do in the moment. Sometimes, it's as easy as meditating on God's Word. Here are some great ways you can de-stress and enjoy the holidays.

    Focus on the positive

    Very often, we focus on the hurtful, the frustrating, the overwhelming, and all the other negative stuff instead of the positive things. Every time you are tempted to dwell on the negative, find a way to turn it into a positive. For example, traffic and parking lot etiquette is terrible and frustrating. But, it also gives you more time in the car alone so you can praise Jesus and pray.

    Express gratitude

    This is directly related to focusing on the positive. Stress seems to bring out the grumbling complainer in all of us. We might complain about how Uncle Joe is late again or Mom embarrassed you with that same story as last year. Maybe it's a child or spouse who won't help clean or cook. Whatever it is, expressing gratitude and again, thinking positive, will help diffuse your rising anger, stress, and frustration.

    Go outdoors and/or do something just for fun

    Taking a walk outside or doing something for no other reason than to just have fun are great ways to diffuse stress. Laughing together, walking in the bright sunlight, getting cozy with hot cocoa and a movie, all of these things can instantly change the tension in the air.

    Some other ideas...



    * Listen to worship music

    * Stress balls, fidget toys, adult coloring books

    * Weighted blanket, yes, even for adults!



    How to Relieve Stress Naturally with Essential Oils



    * Lavender

    * Roman Chamomile

    * Clary Sage

    * Mandarin

    * Marjoram

    * Spikenard

    * Ylang Ylang



    Or with Herbs...



    * Chamomile

    * Lemon Balm

    * Kava Kava

    * Ashwaganda



     



     

    • 17 min
    How to Stop Emotional Eating Right Now With These Simple Steps

    How to Stop Emotional Eating Right Now With These Simple Steps

    Episode 59--We've been talking about the roots and damaging effects of emotional eating. But, how can we escape this vicious cycle that drags us down into depression and obesity? What are some key steps that can help? After all, dieting usually doesn't help. In fact, dieting can sometimes make it worse. This is because emotional eating is a psychological and spiritual issue, not strictly a food issue. Today on Crunchy Christian Podcast, we're discussing how to stop emotional eating from a spiritual and psychological perspective.



    Disclaimer: Remember, I am not a psychologist, pastor, or counselor. Trying the things I mention won't hurt, but you may also need professional help from a counselor or pastor. The intent is not to substitute professional guidance, but rather to make you aware that there are simple and effective things you can do to overcome this issue. You don't need to suffer in silence and shame. 

    How to Stop Emotional Eating with Some Simple Steps

    Now, I'm not going to lie. These steps for how to stop emotional eating are simple, but not necessarily easy. First, they will require you to gather your courage and your Bible.

    Step 1: Renew Your Mind by Telling Yourself the Truth

    One of the biggest issues with emotional eating is negative self talk. You need to change the tapes playing over and over in your head. Pay attention to the things you tell yourself inside your head and the lies you believe about others and yourself. You can begin to change the tapes by posting and reading Bible verses about your identity in Christ. Just because someone says something rude to you doesn't mean they dislike you. And just because you forgot something doesn't mean you are stupid. You may not even be aware that you are telling yourself the worst possible things every time something bad happens. And that's where step 2 comes in.

    Step 2 of How to Stop Emotional Eating:  Practice Mindfulness

    Have you ever heard the adage that our thoughts determine our behaviors? Jesus said that out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks (Matthew 15:18). So, part of how to stop emotional eating is changing your heart, which means your thoughts and beliefs. That means taking every thought captive and the only way we can do that is by practicing mindfulness. Being mindful is slowing down and examining why you feel what you feel. What happened just before? It means examining your thoughts and feelings and asking three whys. Why do I feel/think that way? and then asking yourself Why? until you drill down to the very heart of what's driving you.



    Sometimes this can be painful, but it is key to how to stop emotional eating. You need to better understand yourself and then change your thoughts and beliefs. Essentially, you need to renew your mind by replacing the thought patterns that keep you prisoner with those that will set you free to be all that God intended.

    Step 3: Use Simple Tools

    Sometimes it helps to use a journal or affirmation coloring book. A journal can help you with practicing mindfulness and force you to slow down and reflect. It also gives you a way to track your progress as you renew your mind. If you prefer, you can write a letter to the person who triggers you to most. This is not a letter you would mail, but rather a way to get your feelings out. I have done this before and then put it through the paper shredder. Letting go of past hurts and practicing forgiveness doesn't mean you forget about it.

    • 22 min
    Emotional eating effects that shorten your life!

    Emotional eating effects that shorten your life!

    Episode 58-The holidays aren't always cheery and joyful, right? Sometimes they stir up stress, hurt, and other negative feelings. We deal with these feelings in different ways, but one way is eating. Do you eat when you feel sad? Hurt? Disappointed? If you do this often, it may be a sign of something much bigger called emotional eating. In Episode 57, I talked about how emotional eating starts. In this episode, I share the detrimental health effects of emotional eating. One of the worst emotional eating effects is a shortened lifespan. That's right! Let's dig in and discover how emotional eating is not only bad for your waist line, but also bad for your emotional, mental, and spiritual health as well.

    Emotional Eating Effects

    Your mental and emotional health

    One of the less obvious emotional eating effects but also one of the most devastating is what goes on in your mind. Emotional eating sets up a vicious cycle. First, you eat because you feel bad. You might feel sad, hurt, angry, depressed, frustrated, defeated. But, instead of evaluating why you feel that way, you eat. Instead of confronting the situation and resolving it, you eat. Then, you feel better for a little while. Eventually, though, the effect wears off and you feel the urge to eat again. After all, the thing that stirred up those feelings is still there. Meanwhile, inside your mind, you tell yourself things like, You are such a pig. There you go again. You deserve it, fatty. They're probably right. You can't control yourself, stuffing your face like that. This negative self-talk drives you to eat even more to stuff those feelings, too. And it just keeps going. You may even come to believe what you tell yourself.

    Your physical health

    Of course, another emotional eating effect is weight gain. In the podcast, I talk about some other factors in your body that compound the effects of this weight gain. One that you may not know about is sleep apnea. Excessive weight can impact your breathing at night and prevent you from getting a good night's sleep. Because people tend to eat a lot carbs and sugars with emotional eating, diabetes is a serious emotional eating effect. We choose carbs rather than fats or proteins because the sweet taste is comforting. I talk more about this on the podcast as well.

    Your spiritual health: the worst emotional eating effect of all

    Emotional eating may start out as an occasional binge to drown your sorrows. But, it can also develop into a full-blown food addiction and idolatry. That's why it's such a hard habit to break and why some people can't lose weight. Instead of seeking comfort from other people and especially from Jesus, you seek comfort from food. The cycle is powerful and triggers the rewards center in the brain, much like other types of addictions. The more you do it, the more the habit becomes ingrained, and the harder it is to reverse. But, it can be reversed! If drug addicts, alcoholics, and other types of addicts can be healed, so can you!



    If you need help with conquering cravings and getting control of your sugar addiction, check out my Ditch the Sugar Habit Challenge Bundle

    • 17 min
    The Nasty Truth About Roots of Emotional Eating

    The Nasty Truth About Roots of Emotional Eating

    Episode 57--Around the holidays, we often engage in emotional eating. That's because the holidays bring both joy and stress. Who makes all the food and often buys all the gifts? Mom. Who plans the parties and decorates? Mom. And, you guessed it, it's mom who gathers all the craft supplies and situates all the guests who arrive. So, what does mom do to manage the stress and frustration? She eats. Let's explore how this happen begins so we can better understand how to combat it. In the next few episodes, we will discuss it's effects on the body, what to do about it, and how to get natural relaxation without gaining the extra pounds.

    What is emotional eating?







    Triggered by negative events







    First, the basic idea of emotional eating is eating to suppress negative emotions. Essentially, it's eating to feel better. But emotional hunger doesn’t just come out of nowhere. There’s always a trigger of sorts that causes you to start feeling hungry, even if it’s not clear at first. These triggers vary depending on the person and situation.







    This tends to be a very straightforward cause and effect situation. Because of something in your life that caused distress, you then feel emotional hunger. For example, let's say someone cut you off in traffic or your relative called and started yelling at you over the phone. You feel bad, of course, and a little while later, you grab the bag of chips to get your mind off of it and feel better. Your stomach doesn't actually need food. But, your mind has learned to associate eating with alleviating negative feelings. So, you engage in emotional eating.







    Like an addiction







    It’s not uncommon for people to feel the urge to emotionally eat without fully understanding why. This is because they’ve blocked themselves off from their emotions. So, they don't associate the day's events with their eating habits. But, it's important to do a bit of self-analysis to learn about your own triggers.







    You can figure out your triggers by watching patterns in your own life. Then, you can see when certain things happen and how they drive you to eat during stressful times. You can discover your patterns by keeping a journal or practicing some mindfulness. It is important to notice what you do when something irritates you, someone upsets you, or you feel stressed out. Do you grab some chocolate every time you feel sad? Do you eat while cooking when you're upset about something? Write these things down.







    This knowledge of your own triggers is crucial to fixing your emotional eating habits. Because, if you don't understand your motivations, you can't fix it. You have to know your enemy, so to speak.







    While many people think that you can simply will away emotional hunger, that’s not quite the case. It’s not as simple as just “stopping eating” for many people, because it’s almost like an addiction. And that's why diet after diet fails. It's an emotional hunger, a spiritual hunger, that is temporarily sated by food.







    Emotional eating is a strong urge that they feel like they must fulfill because it is meeting a deeper need. This is what drives them to keep on doing it, even though they know it’s bad for them. Studies show that this is because a sugar addiction is just as powerful as a cocaine addiction. If you feel this might be you, I talk more about the dangers of sugar and offer a a href="https://milkweedschool.

    • 16 min
    9 Best Fertility Herbs for Happy New Parents

    9 Best Fertility Herbs for Happy New Parents

    Episode 56-In the United States, about 12% of women aged 15-44 have difficulty getting pregnant and/or carrying a baby to term. That percentage increases as couples wait longer to have children and is in addition to the 6% who can't get pregnant at all. That means that nearly 20% of women or 1 in 5 experience fertility issues. On top of this, male infertility has been increasing over the past four decades. That's because average sperm counts are down by 52% compared to the early 1970's. Maybe you and your husband are among these folks. So, it's time we talk about the best fertility herbs and other natural helps we can try before turning to drugs and expensive fertility treatments.

    Let's Talk About Fertility

    Most people take fertility for granted. But, many, many things have to go right in order to conceive a child. In women, several organs have to be working optimally. In men, the quality and quantity of sperm has to be high, in addition to an optimally functioning organ. Very often, we assume that if a woman is having her period, she is fertile. That is not necessarily true. We make similar assumptions about a man's virility, but he may have low sperm, dead sperm,  or the pH of the vaginal tract could be killing the sperm. If there is low or dead sperm, there could be a physiological reason, such as having only one testicle.



    But, if there is no physiological reason, many times, infertility can be reversed with the best fertility herbs and other natural helps. After all, sperm is produced in response to hormones and hormone production is influenced by diet, exercise, lifestyle factors, and other things.

    Fertility in Women and Men

    Hormonal Imbalance in Women

    Hormone imbalances that lead to painful periods and PMS can also impact fertility. Low progesterone levels can lead to a short luteal phase. This is the phase right after ovulation that encourages thickening of the uterine lining. The progesterone also helps support the early weeks of pregnancy until the placenta forms. So, low progesterone means that the uterus doesn't thicken to support the embryo and there is an early miscarriage.



    On the other hand, low estrogen levels affect the release of an egg. Low estrogen doesn't always mean there is a problem with the ovaries. It can indicate an issue with the pituitary gland instead. That's because it's the pituitary gland that releases follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) that then triggers the rise in estrogen levels in the ovaries. Usually, it's diabetes that can cause problems with the "master gland."



    Some other things that have been linked to hormone imbalances are birth control pills, weight issues, a very low-fat diet, excessive exercise, stress, and exposure to estrogen mimicking chemicals (endocrine disruptors), such as pesticides and certain plastics. All of these things don't just affect women, though.  Lack of exercise, low-fat diets, and exposure to endocrine disruptors can cause fertility issues in men as well.

    Special Note About Male Hormones

    Endocrine disruptors and phytoestrogens such as soybeans interfere with the production of testosterone. Boys exposed to these chemicals for any length of time, especially in the first three months of life and/or during puberty, are at risk. Please, for the sake of your son's masculine development, do not use a href="https://www.hormone.

    • 26 min
    Natural Remedies for Breast Cysts You Need Now!

    Natural Remedies for Breast Cysts You Need Now!

    Episode 55-Aside from menstrual issues, we women also regularly deal with breast health issues. Do your breasts feel tender, lumpy, or painful around your period? Maybe you're dealing with breast cysts. In this episode, we'll talk about natural remedies for breast cysts and the difference between cysts and tumors.

    Learning more about breast cysts

    What causes breast cysts and who gets them?

    Breast cysts seem to be correlated to the menstrual cycle. If you have premenstrual syndrome or irregular cycles, you are more likely to get cysts. They are related to hormonal imbalances, but are more common among women under age 50.

    What is the difference between breast cysts and breast tumors?

    The difference between a breast cyst and a possible breast tumor is that a cyst is a watery, grape-like sac, whereas a tumor is composed of connective and gland tissue. Cysts often show up suddenly and then dissolve after a menstrual cycle. You can usually move them around with your fingers and they also usually cause pain and tenderness. On the other hand, tumors persist, feel more like a mass than a grape, and grow over time. These also tend to feel firm, usually don't move around easily, and often go unnoticed because they don't cause much discomfort.



    It is important that you understand the differences and if you aren't sure, check with your medical professional. And of course, you should see a medical professional about any changes in breast tissue that persists or grows. Most of the time, these changes are benign, but you want to make sure you don't have early signs of breast cancer.

    Natural remedies for breast cysts

    So, we have two things to focus on--balancing hormones and dissolving the cysts. We want to use diet and herbs to help prevent the cysts from appearing in the first place. And, we also want to use natural remedies for breast cysts that appear in the meantime.

    Balancing hormones

    First, if you are using birth control pills, understand that this could be the cause of your cysts. Birth control pills can also cause blood clots, vitamin deficiencies, headaches, depression, and increased risk for breast cancer. However, it is a personal choice and seems to offer benefits that outweigh the risks for some women. As a Christian, I do not endorse the use of birth control pills, but have used and recommend natural family planning methods.



    Second, as you've heard me say many times on this show, diet plays a key role in hormonal health. A diet high in fruits and vegetables, quality fats and proteins, and moderate to low in grains and high carb foods is best. Eliminating sugar or reducing it helps a lot, too. Alfalfa and probiotics also help. Processed foods increase inflammation, overload the liver, and contribute to hormonal imbalance.



    Now, let's talk about herbs and oils specific to the breasts and dissolving cysts.

    Natural remedies for breast cysts

    Herbs

    Herbs for breast cysts include herbs that dissolve cysts generally and those that address breast health overall. If you are lactating or are pregnant, use caution. In addition, herbs that help balance hormones--such as Black Cohosh or Vitex--will also help prevent cysts. Listen to my podcast about PMS to learn more about other herbs that balance hormones. These herbs should be made as teas. Then, soak a clean linen towel with the very warm tea and apply t...

    • 20 min

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